I give him a thumbs-up. After what happened with Sarah, it is hard to tell which of the things Dom told me were lies and which were truths. In the past month, I have questioned every single aspect in my relationship with Dominic Graves. Ultimately, even the anger and the pain can’t make up for the fact that I genuinely loved him. And that with his death, he took any sense of closure I may have had to his grave.
“I wanted to get away from the Dom-fest. Not because I didn’t care—because I cared too much and didn’t know when the next opportunity to live for myself was going to present itself. I wanted to live for me. Write, drink, fuck. Live a detached, lonely life. Get lost inside myself, find out who I was.” Joe strokes his chin, deep in thought. “Then I met you, and you went and crapped all over my plans. I couldn’t escape you, no matter how hard I tried. You were the only thing I thought about. I wrote Dom and my parents letters about you. I told them I met the one. I wasn’t happy about it. It was more like: ‘Can you believe I met her before I slept with fifteen girls? Before I signed a book deal? Before I rented my own place?’ That was to Dom, obviously. Not Mom and Dad.”
His confession is ripping me apart. I feel like he is prying all my wounds open. I had no idea he was in just as deep.
“I bought a ticket back before I even talked to you,” Joe admits, looking away so I won’t see the color rising in his cheeks. “The plan was to go home, pack my shit, move to California, and hope to hell you wouldn’t get your head out of your ass quickly enough to realize you were dating a loser. I was hoping being next to you would help me put a dent in my manuscript.”
I clutch his hand in mine, closing my eyes. The past is so painful, because we were a breath away from a happily ever after. From my mom being alive and well. From Joe coming for me.
“But then I stopped answering you,” I finish for him softly.
“That didn’t mean I stopped trying, though.” He rubs the back of his neck, frowning. “I kept sending you messages. Then emails to variations of your name. I couldn’t believe I was dumb enough not to ask for your last name. Everlynne is such a unique name. I’d have found you in a heartbeat.”
I sigh, because I felt the same way.
“And then I decided to go ahead and travel to San Francisco anyway.” Joe smiles grimly, staring at an invisible spot on the floor.
“You did?” My heart jumps to my throat.
He grabs the tequila bottle by the neck and walks inside. I follow him. His back is to me when he speaks. “I went there for two weeks. Loitered around places I thought I might bump into you. The Beat Museum, coffee shops, places you said you liked. I was desperate. My mother was worried for me. She wanted me to see a therapist.”
“Did you?”
He shakes his head as he shoves the tequila back into the cupboard. “There was no point. After San Francisco, I realized there was nothing I could do to win you back. I stopped writing. Started taking odd jobs. A year and a half later, Dom got an offer for a position in Salem and dragged me along. Said a change of scenery would do me good. And here we are.”
He turns to me, smiling humorlessly.
“Here we are,” I echo.
For a moment, we just drink each other in.
He snaps out of it first. “Time to hop into the shower, Stinky Face. I’ll get you a towel.”
Joe brushes past me on his way to the hallway. My hand reaches to grip his wrist. He stops. The air between us is charged. Buzzing with danger, desperation, and angst.
He shakes my hand off him. Gentle, but firm.
“No, thank you. I’m not going down in your history book as another reckless mistake.”
He’s making his way to what I presume is his bedroom when I snatch his hand again. In this moment, I’m so desperate for him I am not above begging.
“Come on,” I coax, feeling particularly destructive. The world is fucked, and unfair, and full of injustices. It is random, it is cruel, and it’s screwed us both over. Nothing matters anymore. Joe is not an author, and I’m not an artist, and Dom is not alive. All our dreams have gone up in flames, and there is nothing left to fight for.
Joe turns to me, looking annoyed. “What are you doing, Ever? I just told you how fucked I was after we broke up. Do I look like a game to you?”
He doesn’t. He looks like the boy I never stopped loving. That boy turned into a man, and I love him too. So I rise on my toes tentatively and press a soft, dry kiss on his lips.
His eyelids fall shut, and he lets out a sigh. “Don’t do this.”